The pilot urges us to look out
of the right-side windows of the plane,
asking with a smile in his voice if we have ever seen
a bald eagle in flight.
There it is, winging next to the Airjet as we ascend.
2.
When I was five-years old and my brother eleven, he taught me to play chess. This as a distraction after his failed attempt to enter me in the Little Miss America Pageant.
The family joked that his eyesight was always poor.
I liked that he believed I could pull off a crown.
“Each piece, from Pawn to King, has its place and its own characteristics of movement. Remember that: in this and in life there is order, and the Queen rules the board.”
He is a fastidious man, he always has been,
it serves him well now.
His shower strictly scheduled and timed,
each body part cleansed in its specific order.
His skin smells of amber when he is done.
I have inherited some of this compulsion for order,
but not all – I save private chaos for manic paint
on sleepless nights.
He can afford no chaos.
Or privacy.
I say I will make mashed potatoes this evening. He smiles.
I make enough for five days. Not enough for him.
He is more mother to me than the mother I had, and certainly more father, but just as they are to me strangers, he is in many ways an unknown.
Each day now, he is a stranger to himself
taking inventory each morning
to determine what has left him, what he has left.
I stand beside him and hold his head between my hands
to stop the now constant movement.
I kiss his forehead.
His eyes meet mine and still I see joy and wonder there.
How can that be I ask?
That’s what happens when you live in the moment he replies.
I argue with God as my form of prayer of late,
cry and drink mimosas too early in the morning,
listen to Abbey Road over and over and try to learn to play the tambourine and bongos
with an urgency that causes me
to lose the beat and rhythm.
I know timing is everything.
I know there is no time.
I cover his clean shirt with a beautician’s cape,
joke that his back-length hair needs a perm. Then feed him,
soft food to keep him from choking.
I search my mind for new humor,
some witty thing to make his eyes laugh.
My sister is the funny one.
People say surrender – to God, to the Universe, to “it”.
Okay, I’ll surrender, but not without a fight.
His friends come each and every day.
Tonight the musicians are here.
They play his own songs for him
with a tenderness I envy and admire.
They are his arms and legs and hands.
Too rapidly they are becoming his ears and eyes.
Charm and talent will only get you so far on life’s road I tease.
That seems to be the road I’m on he replies.
In all this, he has never lost his voice.
3.
When I first arrived, my sister-in-law mused
at my newly cropped hair. An emotion-fueled night
with blunt instruments, and a bottle of wine
called Running with Scissors I explain.
I pull out a book from my bag of the same name. It is a theme.
Back in my hotel room, I open her gift to me,
carefully wrapped with cobalt tissue paper, tied with gold string
and glass beads. I saw her select these beads with concentration
the day before. I thought she would make earrings for herself.
In my hand I hold her Grandmother’s silver shears,
smaller than my palm. In her note she warns
that they are sharp. She warns not to run.
4.
Bob Dylan is singing Forever Young through my earphones
and I am sobbing and cannot stop.
I think one day I will write this all down, that I will understand
the complexities of my emotions
and my brother’s emotions
and my nephews’ emotions
and my sister-in-law’s emotions
and my sister’s emotions
and my husband’s emotions
and everyone involved’s emotions
and that job is too big to think about
so I think about what it is I can think about,
and tell the flight attendant No
although I wonder if I should have taken the cookies after all.
I write for three minutes at a time, and while this seat on this plane
leaving the Ozark Mountains is a really lousy place,
there is in this moment
flight with a bald eagle, and mashed potatoes waiting.
5.
There are no revelations today.
No secrets uncovered.
No cures.
No no-fair calls.
There is melody, the Spring maybe.
There is a prism in the window raining cool
color on wood and stone, and in this white light moment it seems,
is the road we're on.
For Nick Masullo, 09/1952 - 09/2008
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